August 1, 2004
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What does it mean to be a Christian today? I ask that
question because we live in a time when more people claim to believe, but a
diminishing number actually attend church on a regular basis.
We live in a time when pollsters tell us that members of one political
party go to church more frequently than any other. The truth is of course that
being a Christian is not about political affiliation, it is about our
relationship with Jesus Christ. I also ask the question because we live in an increasingly
secular world, with a growing number of adults not only rejecting Christianity,
but any faith at all. They say the world is too rational for anyone to believe
in miracles, it is too different for us to believe in unity, it is too cruel to
support the notion of inherent goodness, and too jaded too believe in the power
of faith. I have heard people say that they are too sophisticated, too smart,
and too modern to believe in anything or anyone as remote from their experience
as God. Jesus was a good man and teacher, but nothing more. Nevertheless, today
I want to invite us to consider what it means to say I am a Christian in these
days. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means having a sense
of gratitude for the gifts of God given to us through Jesus Christ. A young man
comes to Jesus because he feels cheated out of his portion of the family assets
and he wants Jesus to help make things right. Maybe he is the younger brother
who feels that the older brother has gotten more than the customary double
portion of his inheritance (Deuteronomy
21.7). Perhaps he is the older brother who is disputing their
parent’s last will and testament. We know, sometimes from painful personal experience, that
inheriting money or property can expose tension in a family that is unseemly and
long lasting. It happens in families and it happens in congregations. A large
bequest often generates conflict in a church with regard to its use; that is why
it is so important to have a bequest policy in place before a bequest is
received. In some cases people who
were successfully managing a little, do not cope well with prosperity and
gratitude is forgotten. (www.lectionary.org/luke/01--8-05
p2).
Jesus declines the invitation to settle the dispute. He will
not become like Judge Judy or the People’s Court. Instead he tells the man a
story about a farmer. His point is not that wealth is bad or success is evil.
His point is that the desire to accumulate more and more stuff can cause us to
lose sight of gratitude to the one who helps us gain what we have, and so to
lose sight of what it means to be a Christian, and it can cause us to lose sight
of Christ himself. Listen Jesus says, “life is about more than what we own. It
is not true that the one who dies with the most toys wins. The one who dies with
the most toys is dead and people are dividing up his things”.
Then he begins to tell a story. A man has a bountiful crop, more than he
thought his planting would yield. So vast was the harvest that the existing
barns were too small. His solution was to tear down his barns and build bigger
ones. A drive through some streets in Bexley and other towns will
illustrate the same thing. People have bought houses, torn them down and built
bigger homes on the property. We can pray that while they enjoy their bigger
barns, they do not make the same mistakes our farmer friend who at the moment he
was ready to eat, drink, and party, he learns that death in on the way. This
very night his soul will be demanded of him. Understand, “the farmer is not
condemned because he worked to produce a bumper crop, but his demise is viewed
as tragic because he wrongly believed that his bulging barns would be his
salvation” (Texts
for Preaching, Year C, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, p. 450). A family wins twenty million dollars in the lottery. They
quit their jobs, move out of the neighborhood they have lived in all their
lives, buy new fully loaded top of the line cars, get new wardrobes – they are
living large and lavishly. They meant to make a large donation to their church,
but they forgot. Someone asked for a contribution to the local community center,
but they just somehow never got around to it. Their old friends don’t mix well
with their newer friends, and vice versa. Folks who used to live around the
block, the ones they knew before they got rich no longer fit into their new
lifestyle of boats and cars, and affluence. Every material need has been met,
but little by little they have become disconnected from all that fed their
souls. Their souls were demanded of them – not in terms of physical death, but
in terms that cause us to reflect deeply about what is important and vital in
our lives. What happened? It is what can happen to us. What happened is that they got confused. They got
“preoccupied with possessions” and forgot about participating in the
community around them. They were caught in the “grasp of greed” and forgot
to use their blessings to help others in need.
They became “practical atheists” – they said they’ve always
believed in God, but when it came to managing their lives, dealing with their
belongings and planning for the future, they lived as though there was no God”
(The
New Interpreters Bible, volume XI, Luke/John.
Nashville. Abingdon Press, 1995, p.257). I want to say again, possessions are not bad, in fact having
our preferred style of clothes, the make and model of vehicle we like, the décor
of our homes, and the books, CD’s, DVD’s, good food and good things to drink
can all add to the quality of our lives. So
Jesus does not tell this story of the successful farmer who becomes a rich fool
to bash having nice things and full barns. The man’s problem wasn’t his wealth. Wealth is not the
problem. The problem was that he had allowed himself to become separated from
what mattered, that is thanksgiving to and trust in God. The problem is that
what separates us from God’s provision is our self-centeredness.
“In the farmer’s short conversation with himself, he uses the word
‘I’ six times and ‘my’ five times. There is not thought of a bonus for
his hired hands or a service project for his community. There is no word of
thanksgiving to God for this tremendous harvest. Everything is ‘I’ or
‘my’. [There is a word for us
too.] We need not be wealthy to be in jeopardy. The jeopardy applies to all who
‘store up treasures for themselves’ and ‘who are not rich toward God.’
The problem is not wealth but selfishness” (lectionary.org
p.4). What does it mean to be materially rich but poor in God? It
means that we have things but no real life – it means that we are tempted to
worship our stuff and forget to thank God who is the giver of every good and
perfect gift. It means its all about us and when life is all about us, when its
just about us, then what anyone else wants or needs just does not matter. Being a Christian is about living with gratitude and knowing
that we all matter. It is also about knowing who we are and what we are about as
we find our lives in Christ. We look to Jesus himself and that we know that we
have worth just because God loves us, and because God loves us, we can love
ourselves. We are called on to defend our faith sometimes because we are
like the rich farmer; our closets are overflowing with clothes and shoes, many
of our cabinets are filled to overflowing. Most of us dread moving for two
reasons. The first is that we are emotionally attached to our homes. The most
significant moments of our lives have happened where we live, it is hard to
leave. The other reason is that we have so much stuff, the thought of having to
sort it, pack it, and move it is just more than we can bear.
We need to remember that when we give our lives to Christ, we are giving
ourselves to the one who gave all that he had for us. When we are rich toward God, we do not shy away from naming
Jesus Christ as Savior or Lord, claiming and following his teachings, and being,
by his grace as Christ-like as we can be. And so being a Christian is about
finding new and renewed life. We can become rich toward God through Jesus Christ because we
have new life in him, and because we are raised up with him, our vision is
lifted up, our hope is grand and bold, and our dreams are big, we can imagine
the future for which we pray and we can walk toward it confident in the presence
of Christ. Our faith in the living God gives us joy, keeps us encouraged,
creates in us a desire to honor God by always praying and working hard to build
up our part of the body of Christ. Colossians declares that Christ lives in us and we in him, we
will be able to let go of some things. The letter talks about what damages us
because it gets the better of us. We let go of the thought that what matters
most is what matters to me, and we need to let go of greet, the notion that the
more we have, the better, more attractive we are. Sometimes enough really is
enough, we just need to believe it. Being a Christian means that we hear Jesus call us to change
our attitudes, from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness. We focus on Christ
who is all in all and see if all we do doesn’t get better, our speech will be
positive, our lives will improve, our faith will be renewed. See if instead of
the indulgence of the farmer fool isn’t replaced by a desire to embrace and
include. We can embrace and include others because someone embraced
and included us and helped us find that part of our lives that were hidden with
Christ in God. It is a mysterious thing to have Christ hidden in us – can’t
always see Christ, but if we are in him, he is in us. Look closely in acts of
kindness you do, in the care you give to your families, in the ways you commit
yourself to the church. I believe you are responding to Christ in you. It is not
always easy, but you do it because Christ is in you. We do it because we get what Mahatma Gandhi identified as the
seven most dangerous qualities we can assume. They are: “pleasure without
conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics
without principle, capitalism without morality, and worship without
sacrifice”. Being a Christian
means we are ready and eager by faith to live with conscience, humanity,
character, principle, morality, and sacrifice. It also means that we are ready
and eager to defend our faith to others. Finally, we finished our video series, “From Jesus To
Christ” last Wednesday. In trying to explain the growth of the church from a
small Jewish sect to a major religion one of the commentators, Elaine Pagels
reminded us that in a world where 75% of the people were slaves, the church was
saying that everyone was made in the image of God. It was a powerful and
liberating thing to hear and believe. It was so powerful that we still believe
it, and because we do, we have decided to make room here without regard to race,
religion, culture, or social condition. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means being grateful
to God, it means being who we are, we means sharing the good news that is in us.
Being a Christian means that when God blesses us, we will share the blessing
with others. Oh if we are blessed with money and material things, we may buy
ourselves something new, that’s OK. But
when we think about it, when we feel the spirit of the living God within us,
when the blessing deepens our faith in God, we can share that good news too. If
God blesses us with a family, we will love and care for them, and nurture and
support them with all that is in us. When God blesses us with health, we will
take care of ourselves and respect our bodies, and the bodies of others. And
when God blesses us with a church, we will work and worship, pray and praise,
and know that as we do, Christ will be in us and we will be in him. God has
blessed us indeed. Being a Christian is about knowing we are blessed and
offering all that we have to God in gratitude and thanksgiving for God creating
us to be the people and church we are and will be. Every day we bless God, and
we look to God and to Jesus Christ to sustain us and to go on this journey of
life with us. It is a good day to walk with God. Thanks be to God. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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